..."Violet" is one of the handful of songs that I remember hearing for the first time...I clearly recall exactly where I was standing (it was in the doorway of the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club in Little Five Points, Atlanta about 13 years ago)...I just knew I had to go out and buy this LP once I figured out who it was (I was a little faded from the pitchers of Guinness I'd been drinking down the street but that's neither here nor there)...in spite of all of Courtney Love's shenanigans over the years, I still love the Live Through This album, I think the cover photo speaks volumes..."Plump", "Doll Parts", "Credit in the Straight World", "She Walks on Me", "Gutless" and "Rock Star" all get steady rotation to this day...she might not be "Miss World" but Courtney did manage to slip this little LP in before she totally fell off..here's the video for that tune I heard while I staggered into my neighborhood bar way back when...
haggardpilot says
hell yeah, this album is incredible. "Credit In the Straight World" was always my favorite track.
I used to be transfixed every time I saw the video for "Doll Parts".
I still love Courtney. it'll never go away.
atman says
yeah, it's a trip to see her as a teenager. And those pics you've found on google, those are a year or two old. She's gonna be an adult in a couple years or so.
I have to wonder if she has any music going on at all.
CrashPryor says
...it might've been the oat sodas talking to me but I could swear that I saw FB holding an axe and playing with Courtney on some footage somewhere...and yeah, she's like all grown up and made me realize how old I'm getting too...she was still like a little baby caught up in the crazy in my mind's eye but, no, she's grown up, yo...
Mike the Knife says
I was acquainted with Courtney in S.F. way before she even heard of Kurt, and she always struck me as cunning - and good for a laugh. But to consider how it all shook down for her...
All's I can say is "Ya never know."
Augusts1 says
A cunning stunt, hehehe! I adore Courtney no matter what anyone says. I f'n bought her debut solo cd "America's Sweetheart" & it is a balls out GREAT cd. In fact it's on my laptop as we speak w/"Celebrity Skin".
Unfortunately, I have several bad associations w/"Live Through This" and just don't ever listen to it, although I know it's great. Between the relationship I was in at the time that eventually failed & Kurt's death it just has alot of bad juju linked to it. I'm gonna have to give it another go though.
It's funny how we associate good or bad things w/music at certain phases of our lives. As much as I love Hole I've listened to the cd trying to get into it & just can't. I think MTV/Radio played the hits off this way too much too. "Doll Parts" I just loathe even though I recognize it's a beautiful song.
thill says
yep, this album is one that is one of my favorites of all-time. i think that it stands the test of time. I think if you are talking chick, confessional rock how could alanis morrissette compare? Alanis is trying to shock and be deep but Courtney is just there. My daughter, who is a senior in high school, said when her friend is feeling down, angry, etc. she puts on Jagged Little Pill. C'mon now. It was my motherly and womanly duty to place Live Through This in her hands.
i have just found out that it is a great album for working out.
I don't know how i feel about courtney...looking at her parents it is no wonder. But as she says, I fake it so real, I am beyond fake.
It always reminds me when my kids were young, "I don't do the dishes I put them in the crib." oh, the memories.
Rawkkiddoh says
Its amazing that a train wreck like Courtney could pull off a album like this. Then again, when you have Kurt working with you I am sure its not that far of a stretch.
CrashPryor says
...Yeah, this LP has stood the test...I think about what all the other "chick bands" put out back then and this just defies that reality...it's actually still quite relevant...Yeah, the Cobain connection's not lost on me, either...but I was drawing on what I was feeling that night in the Yacht Club doorway...I was already feeling Kurt's work by then and I knew that what I was hearing wasn't him singing in that moment (I had the microphany we've all had since after the fact)...no matter how duplicitous she's been vis a vis Kurt's influence on her, even she can't deny that he pointed her in the right directions (albeit a momentary thing)...all of this and what's mentioned in the comments above speak to the fact that good music never dies...right on...
Rawkkiddoh says
True dat Crash, and I think it should be said that this is the one Hole album I still have and listen to today. People want to say it was a one time thing for her, but what a one time thing it was. Another band that reminds me of Hole are the Distlillers. Incredible first album, then slowly they faded away. If you have not heard them, here ya go.
CrashPryor says
..."Idoless" from The Distillers LP and "I Am Revenant" and "City of Angels" from Sing Sing Death House are great tracks that I'd totally flaked on...it's good stuff, CooP...I think I'll circle back on them too, now that you've brought 'em up...thanks, son...
Mister Gary at Home says
Absolutely love this album ... Totally dug "Gutless" and "Olympia" ... and I loved the real "Rock Star," though I didn't hear it until my sophomore year of college a few years after Live Through This came out.
Still think my fave Hole tune has gotta be "Garbage Man," though. So fookin' good ...
SatisfiedMind614 says
I can't even tell you how many times I played this...from start to finish...it was an epic achievement...no matter what she does, ever....this is a classic
SatisfiedMind614 says
It is on that album...one my coolest rock experiences ever was watching a toddler Frances Bean waddle out on stage and bring her mom a beer during hole's encore of that songs
Zeroskilz says
You won't hear me admit this often, but I like this album. I just can't bring myself to listen to it anymore. I am, let's say, not a fan of Ms. Love. Normally, I can separate a stars antics from their real life. Hell, I'd still go watch a Tom Cruise movie if he'd put out somthing different. Something about her just finally got to me though.
As for songs that I can remember the first time. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana. College dorm room watching MTV with a friend. We started jumping on the beds. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact song, but Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom was played between bands at a Nixons/Toadies concert. We heard it and had to pester the sound guy to tell us who it was. It was the best thing I heard at that show.
kristiana says
Wow, Chris, I would have to say that you did a very good job writing this as my impression so far was that Courtney was one of the best-loved-to-hate people around here. Aside from Fedge that is.
How curious that this self-righteous scorn often comes in the form of "what a horrible mother she is". Gee, why aren't people pulling out the same scorn for dipshit dads? A rare bird in the rocknroll world!
Live Through This is a f'ing great rock album, and timeless at that. And I agree with whoever it was said up above, the ironically named America's Sweetheart ain't a half bad album either. Mono really kicks my ass.
CrashPryor says
I love Bob Marley, Kris...he put out a heap of great albums...took care of his kids...and treated his first wife, Rita, LIKE SHITE...you should take a read of "*No Woman, No Cry*":http://www.amazon.com/No-Woman-Cry-Rita-Marley/dp/8466611312/sr=1-1/qid=1171147085/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7052666-9303949?ie=UTF8&s=books to get a glimpse of just what that particular woman went through...it's a rockin' read that I was going to post on at some point but now seems to be the appropriate time to point to it...thanks for keepin' shit real, yo...
jenipop says
Let me just add that this is also one of my favorite albums. Live Through This, along with some other CDs I really like and haven't listened to for awhile - Juliana Hatfield's debut as well as Courtney Love, the band, not the post subject - is sitting in a large box at my friend's house in Miami. I must request that box. Crash, about Frances joining her mom onstage with a guitar...don't you think the famous young woman granting Teen Vogue her first sit-down is more of a fever dream? Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the Sassy covers and Thrift Store Courtney, she of the scantly-powdered pickle nose and puke-green sweaters. Not that I discarded her Vanity Fair remake but it did call the pronouncements of female authenticity and self-esteem into question, somewhat. But whatever. Love does rock and none more triumphantly, in my opinion, than on Live Through This.
As to a life of personal and artistic contradictions, I agree with Kristiana's assertion that the scrutiny of parental abilities is a very public measure that male performers are just not subjected to. Further, such periphery - regardless of the seriousness of the charges and the length of the imposed sentence - often supplants the artistic merits of a particular release, instigating a weird, tabloid-y career trajectory. Regardless, I think Love remains every bit as canny as she is intelligent. And I don't care how well you can source the suicide conspiracy: I won't believe it. She may be shrewish and unhinged where Kurt's estate and apportioned musical legacy is concerned but her devastation was palpable. Kurt's darkness swallowed not only himself but those who cared about him.
While his death was a marker for our generation - I heard it on a car radio in a Winn Dixie parking lot - the event has loomed longer and less kind for the woman who was married to the musican, drawing her influences, abilities and mental state into some sneering castigation. I hope Courtney Love gets it together and wallops all of her critics with an album comparable to Live Through This.
Unerring post, by the way.
CrashPryor says
@JP: "the scrutiny of parental abilities is a very public measure that male performers are just not subjected to."...yeah, that's truth; I think it speaks to a larger cultural issue, though...music being an extension of it and all, it's not surprising that many cling to certain aspects of an artist's work (like it or no, Courtney is one) while easing back on others and asking the hard questions-- blaming Yoko for the Beatles' dissolution is tres asinine but, still, it definitely solidified her fate as a conduit of negativity in many people's eyes while it's rarely pointed out that John and Paul were at an artistic (and probably personal) impasse...this reeks of gender bias, I know, and I'm certain that K-Fed (or Fed Ex as I've heard him referred to) could tell us a thing or two about that but that little can of worms would bring us to the issue of actual talent which Love and Ono actually possess...
In spite of what's been printed about Ms. Love's parenting prowess in the tabs, I never judged her, personally because I don't know her, I will say that her behavior only egged the nay-sayers on...that said, none of it takes away the fact that she cut Live Through This (even the title does still drip with irony) which is a feat in/of itself and it brings me to the "Vanity Fair-ness"...Courtney might be many things but I don't think a fool is one of them and whether she'll ever be able to cut another set like this is a tall order...if she doesn't, so what? If LTT had come out at any other point in time I don't think as many people would've heard it and when I type "heard" I mean, *really listened*, plain and simple-- it's definitely a right place/ time kind of thing...another whole LP as good as this one-- not bloody likely...I'm just glad that she got to cut this one, thankyouverymuch...nicely done, jeni...
Blue Meenie says
Still rock to this occasionally. Always loved "Softer, Softest". Really nice build up in that tune......"just bring me back her head, yeah"....
..."Violet" is one of the handful of songs that I remember hearing for the first time...I clearly recall exactly where I was standing (it was in the doorway of the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club in Little Five Points, Atlanta about 13 years ago)...I just knew I had to go out and buy this LP once I figured out who it was (I was a little faded from the pitchers of Guinness I'd been drinking down the street but that's neither here nor there)...in spite of all of Courtney Love's shenanigans over the years, I still love the Live Through This album, I think the cover photo speaks volumes..."Plump", "Doll Parts", "Credit in the Straight World", "She Walks on Me", "Gutless" and "Rock Star" all get steady rotation to this day...she might not be "Miss World" but Courtney did manage to slip this little LP in before she totally fell off..here's the video for that tune I heard while I staggered into my neighborhood bar way back when...
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